U.S.-Mexico water deadline passes with debt unpaid

Reuters AlertNet ^ | Oct. 3, 2002 | Deborah Tedford

[madfly]

BROWNSVILLE, Texas, Oct 2 (Reuters) - The Bush administration and Texas lawmakers on Wednesday called on Mexico to take steps to meet its debt of millions of gallons (liters) of water to Texas farmers.

Wednesday marked the end of the latest five-year water accounting cycle and the deadline for repaying water owed under the 1944 U.S.-Mexico treaty, with which Mexico has failed to comply over the past 10 years.

Rep. Solomon Ortiz, a Texas Democrat, said Mexico's lack of compliance and a years-long water shortage have devastated south Texas' agriculture, accounting for losses of more than $2 billion in revenue and 30,000 jobs since 1991.

Ortiz, seven other members of Congress from Texas and a pair of colleagues from Arizona and California urged Congress to pass a non-binding resolution calling on the Bush administration to step up pressure on Mexico in the water dispute.

"Our people are hurting, we are seeing huge damages, estimated at almost $2 billion," Ortiz said. "After years of negotiations, there is still no repayment plan and Mexico is seemingly uninterested in even talking about making annual payments."

Over the past five years Mexico should have released up to 1.5 million acre feet of water from rivers and streams in Mexico for use in south Texas.

An acre foot is enough water to cover one acre (0.4 hectares) to a depth of one foot (30 cm). One acre-foot is equivalent to 325,850 gallons (1.23 million litres).

Texas officials have charged . . .(full text at link)

[yoe]

Hellooooo, they're not going to comply and the sly Fox won't make them...........

[Doctor Stochastic]

New Mexico has even bigger water-debts to Texas from the 1930s. These will not be paid either. Neither will the Colorado debts to New Mexico.

Upstream rules.

[William McKinley]

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[skeeter]

But Mexico is not upstream fm Texas...

[Doctor Stochastic]

Check your maps. The Rio Conchos (one of at least 4 with that name in the area) provides much of the Rio Grande water. The water comes North from Mexico and enters the Rio Grande at Presidio (or Ojinaga on the other side.)

New Mexico blocks the Rio Grande at Elephant Butte and the Pecos somewhere. The Rio Grand is essentially dry from El Paso to Presidio. All of the Texas downstream towns on the Pecos have been abandoned. (They weren't much even with the river flowing. Now they are nothing.)

[Redbob]

Surprise, surprise!